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Mr_Odwin

Weight Loss & Fitness 2012

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Well, I've been working my core and stretching, including some tennis ball rolling on my back, glutes and feet, and I must say my back is feeling better already.

 

My back was showing all the signs of a slipped disc, including just recently sciatica down my left leg, I'm probably not out the woods yet but but I can't believe how quickly it's improved.

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If you had a slipped disc its unlikely to fix itself. Don't leave it! I hurt my back and left it for months, eventually the muscles supporting the 4 discs gave in and my entire back locked up. My poor dad had to force me into my bed while I was screaming in pain. I think I did some muscular damage by leaving it and it's never been the same since.

 

In other news, my arse feels like its made of rocks.... Killer squats.

 

Thanks to @Charlie for linking me to that page about women weightlifting, I've added the lady mentioned (barbellas universe) to my Facebook and shes a friggin inspiration. Absolute role model :3

 

I'm super motivated at the moment and I can feel the weight falling off me. Have weaned myself to weighing twice a week so I don't know if I've lost anything until Friday :o

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Any word on ye lads (and ladies?)

 

Or is it that time of year when everyone's given up??

 

I gained 2 fucking pounds this week, on top of the 1.9 last week. Fucks sake. I have developed some scary muscles on my legs that I've never seen, even in my over a year of training. So I guess the go heavy or go home ethos I'm following is working? Hurrah! Upped my deadlift and press to a 12kg vipr weight and managed to do my whole routine at a similar time.

 

Working on the idea that if I'm not wrecked within half an hour of weight training, I'm not doing it heavy or hard enough (that's not including the 3/4 minute cardio warm up) And I think I'll up my squat up and chop to 8kg next time I go, see if I can handle it :P

 

 

I bought some optimum nutrition protein in chocolate flavour and damn it's good. I read the tub and I was like yeah right you can stir it with a spoon!!! But actually I put the water in it and the very majority of it had already absorbed into the water :o some cracking good stuff, and not too high on the old junk sweeteners compared to some. I got it for a massive bargain too, £40 for a 2.2kg tub. I happen to know the wife of the owner of the the best sports nutrition shop in ballymena ohh yeah contacts :3 even the labelled price at 50 isn't too bad when you don't have to pay postage or have the hassle of those woeful courier services!

 

Also gonna have a crack at making pre-workout flapjack type things, if anyone has any good recipes please post em! I tend to eat cereal bars about an hour before my workout but I'm trying to clean my diet up a bit starting with one thing at a time.

Edited by Raining_again

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Any word on ye lads (and ladies?)

 

Or is it that time of year when everyone's given up??

 

I don't have any specific goals really, so not much I can update on other than injuries. :laughing:

 

I might test my back out with some light deadlifts tomorrow, see where it's at. Long term I'm probably going to have to limit deads to once a week at the most.

 

I'm thinking of properly learning the power clean as a potentially more back friendly total body pull I can do also. Currently I clean the bar for presses and front squats but I wouldn't want to do it for heavy reps just yet until I refine my form. Looking forward to hopefully developing some beastly traps eventually.

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I don't have any specific goals really, so not much I can update on other than injuries. :laughing:

 

I might test my back out with some light deadlifts tomorrow, see where it's at. Long term I'm probably going to have to limit deads to once a week at the most.

 

I'm thinking of properly learning the power clean as a potentially more back friendly total body pull I can do also. Currently I clean the bar for presses and front squats but I wouldn't want to do it for heavy reps just yet until I refine my form. Looking forward to hopefully developing some beastly traps eventually.

 

You are the only active person in this discussion lol :P

 

My back is feeling a bit beastly after the 10 to 12kg upgrade so I think I'll need to get used to that weight for a while!

 

My colleague body builds and I asked him what he can deadlift, to which he said 215kg.... Wowsa. Colour me impressed. He's god damn fit though.

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You are the only active person in this discussion lol :P

 

My back is feeling a bit beastly after the 10 to 12kg upgrade so I think I'll need to get used to that weight for a while!

 

My colleague body builds and I asked him what he can deadlift, to which he said 215kg.... Wowsa. Colour me impressed. He's god damn fit though.

 

That's a solid deadlift alright, but in comparison to your 12kg Vipr you've got to remember he's talking about the best he's ever done busting a gut for one rep, while you're doing very high reps. You probably already know this but I bet if you dropped the reps you could probably handle a lot more weight than maybe you think.

 

I know I could probably deadlift quite a bit more than I currently can already, but my grip won't let me. If grip wasn't an issue I reckon I could do 120+ right now, and if I ate for the job I should easily improve on that with enough training. I'm only around 71-73kg myself so I'd be chuffed with double bodyweight.

 

I don't really care that much though, I don't take any sups, count calories or even eat the recommended amount of protein, I just lift for the fun of it and take whatever improvements I get. The way I see it is the fact that I train at all probably puts me ahead of the average joe fitness wise.

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Oh yeah totes. I do 10,12 and 15 in a circuit style (so total 37) and he does 1 of that weight. And he's been training for years against my few months :P I'm not really at the stage where I want to do single reps of really high weights, need to get my muscles developed a bit more so I'm not risking injury. :) I think he's like 79kg, so hitting more than double, however he is eating super super clean, and getting in 300g protein a day!!!

 

I'm not great with my diet at the moment... But I gotta say even with a not clean diet, having a dose of protein straight after a session does help. I actually find my aches are a lot less severe and don't last as long as they would without the protein. And it's definitely worth putting a bit of cash into a decent one, even if you're only doing a post workout shake like I am (has the added advantages of lasting longer lol)

 

My grip isn't fantastic either. There are new all the rage bean bag type weights which you swing like a kettlebell, only you're more holding it with your fingers, might be worth trying that to improve the strength in your hands perhaps?

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I've finally joined the gym and it is making a difference. I'm not really going for anything in particular.

 

I usually do a bit of rowing and a bit of cycling (on this crap equipment where you have a screen in front of you like a video game cycling machine). I really enjoy the rowing actually, though I'm not sure what it does for my body.

 

I also do some weights but no particular routine which I suppose I should start doing if I want to have a better effect on my body.

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I haven't really been trying for ages!

 

My weight hasn't fluctuated much so at least i'm keeping all that weight I lost off! :-)

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fe2e454560e7823de09bf4888dd7aafe.jpg

 

This is my current training regime. I do them in a circuit, so I do all of the 10s first, in order on that list, then do all of the 12s then all of the 15s. Did this with 8kg kettlebell, 12kg vipr (for clean and press), 8kg vipr (for squat and chop) Squat and chop is a 1 handed exercise so 10/12/15 of each side.

 

The vipr was recently upgraded from 10 and 6kg respectively

 

Did that all today in a butt busting 22m57s :)

 

And now I'm going to sleep :P

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fe2e454560e7823de09bf4888dd7aafe.jpg

 

This is my current training regime. I do them in a circuit, so I do all of the 10s first, in order on that list, then do all of the 12s then all of the 15s. Did this with 8kg kettlebell, 12kg vipr (for clean and press), 8kg vipr (for squat and chop) Squat and chop is a 1 handed exercise so 10/12/15 of each side.

 

The vipr was recently upgraded from 10 and 6kg respectively

 

Did that all today in a butt busting 22m57s :)

 

And now I'm going to sleep :P

 

If you can do it all in 22 minutes you're not lifting heavy enough!

 

 

My training is going pretty well at the moment, last week I 'span' twice and 3 weight sessions. Starting to notice a bit of a difference - was eating really healthily last week too. AS always, weekends knock it out a bit.

 

Down from ~75kg to ~73kg which is good news. I reckon I can make it to ~70kg by Christmas if I keep on working hard and not eating shite during the week (so in other words don't eat the two huge chocolate chip cookies I had this morning...).

 

Body on the whole is looking good though. Consistently upping my weights by 2.5kg-5kg on each exercise that I'm doing. Currently concentrating on the 'big' ones.

 

  • Bench press - 3x5 reps (65kg)
  • Military press (3x5kg, 27.5kg)
  • Squat - 3x5 (55kg)
  • Dead lift - 3x5 (60kg)
  • Bent over row - 3x5 (60kg)
  • Pull ups - 3x5 (10kg assistance)

 

These exercises work out the majority of muscles in your body and I'm really noticing a difference everywhere. A month or so ago I was doing 45-50kg bent over row, 50kg bench press and wasn't squating or dead lifting at all. From what I've been reading squatting and dead lifting are really good for your overall strength and muscle definition so definitely carrying them on.

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ohh the thread has got great info..and loosing weight is always an important thing for everybody out here..will surely like to work on my increasing weight... :(

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If you can do it all in 22 minutes you're not lifting heavy enough!

 

 

My training is going pretty well at the moment, last week I 'span' twice and 3 weight sessions. Starting to notice a bit of a difference - was eating really healthily last week too. AS always, weekends knock it out a bit.

 

Down from ~75kg to ~73kg which is good news. I reckon I can make it to ~70kg by Christmas if I keep on working hard and not eating shite during the week (so in other words don't eat the two huge chocolate chip cookies I had this morning...).

 

Body on the whole is looking good though. Consistently upping my weights by 2.5kg-5kg on each exercise that I'm doing. Currently concentrating on the 'big' ones.

 

  • Bench press - 3x5 reps (65kg)
  • Military press (3x5kg, 27.5kg)
  • Squat - 3x5 (55kg)
  • Dead lift - 3x5 (60kg)
  • Bent over row - 3x5 (60kg)
  • Pull ups - 3x5 (10kg assistance)

 

These exercises work out the majority of muscles in your body and I'm really noticing a difference everywhere. A month or so ago I was doing 45-50kg bent over row, 50kg bench press and wasn't squating or dead lifting at all. From what I've been reading squatting and dead lifting are really good for your overall strength and muscle definition so definitely carrying them on.

 

Those moves are what it's all about. Compound exercises are by far the most effective as they work so much muscles at the same time. I tend to do most of those but add in more isolation exercises for specific body areas, like press-ups and incline flyes for the chest and bicep curls and tricep extensions for the arms.

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Those moves are what it's all about. Compound exercises are by far the most effective as they work so much muscles at the same time. I tend to do most of those but add in more isolation exercises for specific body areas, like press-ups and incline flyes for the chest and bicep curls and tricep extensions for the arms.

 

Yeah definitely. Since I started doing them far more than what I was doing before I've noticed a big difference in my general strength.

 

I have to say I am still liking doing the barbell bicep curls every so often though!

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If you can do it all in 22 minutes you're not lifting heavy enough!

 

well I have only started this routine, I'm continuously upping my weights, but I'm doing it gradually. It's a work in progress shall we say :p i dont want to up more than 1 weight on each session.

 

I'm not giving myself specific breaks, just taking them if I feel like I need to. With the circuit style it's easier to move from one set to another as its working different muscles, so sometimes I don't take breaks at all, but sometimes I take long breaks (usually after the single hand kb as it knocks me for 6)

 

What would you suggest is a good time to aim for? (the time is based on starting first rep and stopping last rep, there's no warm up or cool down included in that time)

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well I have only started this routine, I'm continuously upping my weights, but I'm doing it gradually. It's a work in progress shall we say :p i dont want to up more than 1 weight on each session.

 

I'm not giving myself specific breaks, just taking them if I feel like I need to. With the circuit style it's easier to move from one set to another as its working different muscles, so sometimes I don't take breaks at all, but sometimes I take long breaks (usually after the single hand kb as it knocks me for 6)

 

What would you suggest is a good time to aim for? (the time is based on starting first rep and stopping last rep, there's no warm up or cool down included in that time)

 

It's not a race! Take as much time as you need. Next time you go up every single weight for every exercise. Even just by 1kg and it will make a difference.

 

If you're doing it around 30mins smash some cardio out afterwards. Great for fat stripping.

 

I had a beast of a gym session earlier tonight. Didn't think I was going to make it considering that I slept for an hour or so, and then dozed for another, straight after work.

 

Got up there and straight onto the bench. Started off:

 

8 reps, 50kg

6 reps, 60kg

4 reps, 65kg,

2 reps, 67.5kg

 

I'm hoping that next time I can do the same but 8,6,4,4.

 

Moved over to the squat rack and did 3x5 57.5kg.

 

Chin ups, 3x5 (no assistance)

Barbells curls, 3x5 30kg.

 

Boom!

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Did my routine in 27:25 this time so getting there. made myself have a little bit more break time (which I did need in the end lol). Upped my double handed kb swing to 12 (from 8) so that's a brave jump. Can't really do 1kg of each as theyve only got 8, 12 and 16 kg kettlebells, and the viprs go up in 2kg increments, and I think upping everything at once might be too much. Just going with what feels right at the moment, not going to be upset if I don't get the weights as high as I possibly can for the moment as I'm still a novice to weight centred training. Would rather go a little too light than injure myself. I will take your advice on board and do some cardio after my session :)

 

So currently all of my single handed weights are 8 and my doubles are 12. Quite pleased with my progress. Started on 6 and 8 so I'm progressing nicely for just a months work :D

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Form over weight is bar the priority. It doesn't matter how heavy you lift, if the form is wrong you're getting no benefit other than possible injury. You should probably spend about 4 weeks on the same weight until you up them, as your body gets stronger.

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Form over weight is bar the priority. It doesn't matter how heavy you lift, if the form is wrong you're getting no benefit other than possible injury. You should probably spend about 4 weeks on the same weight until you up them, as your body gets stronger.

 

Oh yeah totes, my form is fine. I had my pt check my form before I even got into it. I've been swinging an 8kg kettlebell for the guts of 2 years without any injury :) I actually feel like my body is in better shape than it has ever been :D I've not been upping the weights too quickly for that very reason, just one at a time, because if I do it too heavy too soon my form will go to complete shit.

 

I've got 6 different exercises, and I up a different one every week, so each exercise will be upped once every 6 weeks. To be honest that will probably slow down before too long as it is getting harder each time I up a weight lol :bouncy:

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Form over weight is bar the priority. It doesn't matter how heavy you lift, if the form is wrong you're getting no benefit other than possible injury. You should probably spend about 4 weeks on the same weight until you up them, as your body gets stronger.

 

When you first start out you can easily up it by a couple of kilograms a go with no worries at all.

 

If you're finding that you can't manage the new weight then only do it for one set and move back down to the original.

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I do find I'm coping ok with the upping at the moment, but I am feeling like I'm biting into the proper amount of weight now. As a female I am going to be on slightly less weight than a typical male of my age/strength/weight etc, so I think I'm progressing well. I'd rather be a little slower in upping my weights now at the beginning while my muscles aren't as strong, than risk damaging my body from over exertion. I like the idea of doing the 1st set with a higher weight and going lower if I need to, that's a good backup plan. Thanks :)

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Tried doing some front squats at home without a rack and it was pretty much a terrible workout. Didn't get what I wanted out of it, it was a struggle and I didn't really push my legs at all. It's not for me. I prefer having the barbell behind me as I can really push the legs. It doesn't feel comfortable having the barbell in front.

 

So, I've finally taken the plunge and have bought a squat stand from Amazon for around 50 quid. I can use the stand for bench pressing, too, which is a huge plus for me.

 

Needed this. My workouts have been going astray at home and I've felt quite limited by what I can do, so far.

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Been missing out on some of my sessions and not getting the full 3 per week of swimming. Social life and assignments getting in the way. I do feel bad and actually miss it when I don't do the three a week, so I guess that's a good thing.

 

I've also made a graph with my progress and glued it to my bedroom wall to keep me motivated. It's a good reminder if not anything else.

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Raaawwwrrrrrr.

 

 

I was with my pt today, he's given me a slight variation on my current workout, added a couple of things in. He said he doesn't like to make too many complete changes too quickly, just additions, and adding bits to current sets. Like how you change a tricep lift to a 21, to involve the biceps as well, or adding a row into a clean and press.

 

He was astounded by how far I've come in the last 4 weeks, especially considering how I've not been able to train for two of them. So I did the 10 and 12 of these 8 exercises with him. (I did only have 6 exercises prior to this, but in a 10, 12, 15 set)

 

So next time I go I fully intend to do 10,12 and 15 of the stuff he's given me today. New goal = extremely motivated. And I like that he's only made a few changes, keeping the 6 exercises I'm now relatively accustomed to, and added 2 new ones. Means I've got a bit to bite onto but I'm not feeling totally lost with everything.

 

Oh yeah and I lost 3.6lbs this week hurraaaahhh :)

 

He did say to me that gains aren't necessarily fat when I'm training like I am, muscles grow and as they do they store more glycogen. Every gram of glycogen that goes into your muscles requires another 3g of water, so there's a bit of water retention going on in the initial stages. Hopefully that will pan out a bit now, and go back to a slow and steady. I've decided to only weigh myself once every two weeks as I was pretty much daily weighing and getting obsessed.

 

Was fairly well through the routine, got onto the 12 set of clean and press, pt said to me, you know that's 144kg of weight?! (as if to say that's a lot, you know it's ok if you can't) And I said nothing and pushed 12 out in a row without any problems. Ha. Take that. :) I can do the 15 set too....!

Edited by Raining_again

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I hate being beaten, the stubborn part of me likes to show off. I'm certainly feeling it today, every part of my body aches :P

 

304db42437fcbd6801901f98873e975e.jpg

 

Because its easier to take a photo than type all of that out :p

 

Did sets 10 and 12 on Saturday, in about half an hour. :)

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